Magi 233rd Night Review

Written by: Micha

We are screwed. So, so screwed. Have you read this new chapter? This one made me question every seemingly plausible theory that I have ever cooked up. And the level of sweet deception Ohtaka brought with this one feels incredible to my masochistic soul.

After Solomon tore the rukh  from “ill-illah” and distributed them among everyone equally, it is only a matter of how the people would perceive Solomon’s debatable actions. They did not like it. And despite Sheba’s attempts to convince the people that Solomon had done it to make them all equal, they stood unfazed.

Ithnan, someone whom we had already predicted to fall in to depravity since he ended up in Al Thamen, says that now that Ill-Illah had been sealed it was impossible for the magicians to use magoi as they did before. The magicians could now only utilize the little magoi that was within them, and it certainly wasn’t enough to counter if the other species were to attack them again.

Why do unimportant people always look ugly in this manga?

 Sheba protests that  now that the rukh had Solomon’s will embedded in it, all species would be happy and they were free from “destiny”, which was countered by Arba, whom I have started to get a little girl-crush on  ever since this chapter. Arba says that they were still controlled by the prison known as “destiny” as nothing much has changed, since Ill-Illah’s will was simply replaced by Solomon’s.

Ugo cried out in disbelief that Solomon only had wanted to create utopia where all species could live in peace. Ithnan did not like it. He refused to accept the concept of “destiny” as it’s pretty evident that he’s still suffering in the aftermath of Setta’s death. He says that Setta fought and died on his own will rather than it being the flow of destiny. If saying that Setta died because it was only a part of the “destiny”, it would only serve to make fun of his pride.

Sheba objects that Solomon would never make fun of the dead, and it was at this point that highlights Sheba’s loyalty to Solomon. Wahid then questions Sheba where the rukh  of the dead people goes to. The rukh  of dead people were supposed to go to Ill-Illah, but now that was no longer an option, Wahid and Falan’s son, Tess’s rukh was shared among everyone which was not something they were willing to accept.

For some reason, Wahid is the last person I expected with an expression like this.

So the gist of this all is that after having discovered “destiny” most of the people are not willing to accept it even though the distribution of rukh brought equality in terms of power, which was their superordinate goal when they were fighting the Orthodox in the first place.  

The first seven pages of the chapter, as you’ve read, is pretty much everyone disagreeing with each other, and the Resistance dividing according to their opinions. On one side, Solomon’s side, we have Sheba and Ugo who are loyal to Solomon like hell. On the other side, we have everyone else. This is gonna be fun.   

Falan disagrees with the notion that they were equal, saying that Arba, Ugo, and Sheba were the only ones, as opposed to others, who can utilize the rukh around themselves. The people were not equal at all. 

After having heard that, the people went in to a vortex of conflicting ideas. Some thought that the man they elected as king was arrogant, even though he had created a utopia. And they compared Solomon with his father David, who was an authoritarian prick. But that’s not the only point. It was the way the people were drawn, with dark silhouettes and freaky faces that Ohtaka loves so much. Here, let me show you.

Looks like something Edvard Munch would draw.

It looks like that the people are falling in to depravity, but I’ll touch on that later.

Sheba was enraged. She said that Solomon had to sacrifice himself and suffer the loneliness because they were the ones who had oh-so desperately wanted him as a king to bring equality among all species. And now that they have finally achieved it, they were betraying King Solomon.

Arba takes initiative and advices everyone to head back since they’d achieve nothing so long as they were discussing it in there. Ithnan tried to disagree but apparently Arba gave him some sort of death glare that had convinced him otherwise.

Arba's got her bitch mode on.

 Sheba asks Arba if she was willing to work with her and Ugo since Arba was very fond of Solomon up until now, but Arba smiles and says just two words, “our father…” and got the hell out.

The chapter moves on to the next scene (thankfully) where Sheba talks to a very indifferent Solomon, whom now magically looks more mature. This scene is one of the weirdest and confusing stuff I’ve seen throughout this manga. Sheba asks Solomon how he was feeling and Solomon only relishes on how the world is all tied up together. Sheba then chimes in that Solomon should convince everyone that he did it for equality, to which Solomon replies, “every living thing is individual, however their source thinks of them as a single being.”

What. ever. the. fuck. that. means.

"Solomon, why are you being such a dick to me?"

Obviously I will talk about that later in this review, but let’s focus on Sheba for now who is immensely depressed considering that Solomon had disappeared with the rukh and did not acknowledge her at all.

Sheba then takes on Solomon’s role as the king, since she does not wish the world to fall in to chaos once again. Falan, Wahid, and Ithnan came forward to ask an audience with the King since, if you remember in one of the previous chapters before the war, they had pledged that they would stand against Solomon if he were to become arrogant like his father.

This caused an uproar in the room as everyone started arguing, but in the end, the magicians who opposed King Solomon fell silent and decided not to speak ill of King Solomon, Sheba, and discuss the concept of “destiny”. The cause of this is unknown.

Sheba, ever heard of the phrase, "calm before the storm"?

Sheba was under the impression that everyone had understood Solomon’s actions, but what she didn’t know is that Arba  is cooking a fucking meth lab in her basement, which is where the chapter ends for this week.  

My opinion on this chapter:

First of all, where did Sheba shove her baby? I was under the impression that her bump would be at least showing by now since the war has now ended. I really do wish that Ohtaka would focus on that  a bit sooner since they have been carrying that torch for a while, and it'd be great if we could get that out of the way.

Secondly, did you see the people slowly falling in to depravity the more they tried to go against "destiny"? I assume that they were falling in to depravity, because for one thing as I have mentioned earlier, the creepy way Ohtaka chose to draw them. The other thing is that the people at the current world, is said to fall in to depravity when they go against fate. People like Judar, and the members of Al Thamen, that is. And it seems safe to apply that concept with the people of Alma Torran.

And, it seems that that Solomon have somehow made his will absolute. And the one thing that is confusing about Solomon is his uncaring, cold attitude towards Sheba. I'm choosing to believe that Solomon is no longer physically alive. He had disappeared in to the rukh when he separated it from Ill-Illah, thus he no longer has a physical body. The person standing in front of Sheba was merely a hologram of some sort made of rukh which carries Solomon's Wisdom.

How did I come by this? Because it's the only logical explanation I can think of. There's no way in hell that Solomon would be that indifferent and ignorant when his people are caught up in a moral dilemma that may become chaotic. And he did not answer any of Sheba's questions because the rukh were merely his will, not his conscious.

    

And most importantly, to people who are theorizing that Sheba maybe Gyokuen, I think it's time we stopped fantasizing about that. It was a good run, but Arba seems to be proving more potential to be Gyokuen than Sheba. I'm not entirely sure what Arba is up to, but she's bringing a storm. A huge fucking storm. My best bet is that she's reviving Ill-Illah, or "father" as she says.

But one thing is starting to make sense. I try to interpret the giant doodles Ohtaka does, which are  almost always, around the last few pages of the chapters. This one was in 223, if I remember correctly, when Arba was convincing Sheba to marry Solomon.

The dark one on the right seems more like the silhouette of Arba considering her hairstyle, and the right one looking angelic looks to be Sheba. The symbolism is finally sinking in to me. 

Chapter rating:

4.5/5

You win, Ohtaka. You win.

Bonus:

Look at that beautiful, psychopathic face.

Sheba, start panicking.

Micha: [Co-founder]













Micha likes to broadcast her terrible drawing skills to the world on her DeviantArt account and talks about her life long ambition of making Yakushi Kabuto a woman, on her Skype; michasucks. Yes, with the dot. She will also respond to e-mails on her michamichamicha@live.com because Amber forces her to.

 Also, she now has an ask.fm and tumblr. Here's your chance   to harass her.